1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for transferring audio data to a data recorder using a personal computer bus to receive audio data.
2. Description of the Related Art
An optical disk driver for a rewritable optical disk such as a CD_RW uses the AT Attachment Packet Interface (ATAPI) bus standard developed for a personal computer (PC). Through the ATAPI bus, an optical disk driver receives data from other devices and records the received data on an optical disk.
The ATAPI protocol is a multi-to-multi device protocol, such that before a device connected to the bus transfers data through the bus, the device must conduct a preparation processes marked ‘A’ in FIG. 1. The preparation processes include bus busy checking, bus occupying, and entering into communication standby mode which require issuing and executing necessary packet commands. After the preparation processes are done, two devices connected to the bus can transfer data therebetween.
If an audio data recording/reproducing device uses a general optical disk driver adopting the ATAPI standard, the data to be recorded should be provided for the disk driver in accordance with the sequence diagram of FIG. 1. However, the above-explained preparation processes should be executed in advance for entering into a data communication mode in which data are effectively communicated between two devices, causing data transmission to be delayed. Therefore, the ATAPI standard has some disadvantages due to data transmission delays when applied in an audio data recorder in which audio data must be transferred with minimal delay.
Recently, in the field of ACDRs (Audio CD Recorders), an optical disk driver for consumer use has been developed. This optical disk driver has an exclusive audio channel for receiving audio signals and a channel protocol for the exclusive audio channel instead of adopting the ATAPI standard. The audio recording/reproducing device adopting the optical disk driver receives audio signals through the exclusive audio channel and then records them on an optical disk. Audio data in the optical disk driver is transferred as serial data. On the other hand, all data in the optical disk driver for a PC, e.g., a CD-RW are transferred as 16-bit bus data.
Therefore, the optical disk driver for consumer use cannot be used in a personal computer (PC) employing an ATAPI bus because the exclusive audio channel and the channel protocol of this optical disk driver are not compatible with the ATAPI standard used in a PC. Furthermore, for consumer use, the optical disk driver must be operated by user commands, not by commands from the PC.
Accordingly, the demand for such optical disk driver is much lower, and these optical drivers are more expensive than the widely popularized disk drivers using the ATAPI bus architecture. This causes an audio recording/reproducing device using such optical disk driver to be less cost competitive.